New to Lighting and need suggestions

Rogerp · Post by **Rogerp** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:15 pm

I am planning on building a Polar Lights 1/1000 TOS Enterprise and want to light it. I have lots of modelling experience but no experience with lighting and LED's.
Any suggestions for a novice?

Sloucher · Post by **Sloucher** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:03 pm

Hi Rogerp

Space is at a premium in this scale of model, so my suggestion would be to use one or two white leds in the saucer section and again one or two in the engineering section for interior lighting. Of course, this does mean making holes to let the light out as required! You could use the self adhesive vinyl stickers to work out where best to drill/cut the windows for the effect you're after - not every window will be lit of course.

If you feel brave enough, there's just enough room I found at the front of the engineering section to put a small flasher circuit using a 555 timer to power a red and a green led for the nav lights on the saucer section (pm me if you like and I can give you more details of a suitable circuit diagram).

If you really want to get arty, you could always light the bussard collectors or make a circuit to produce a rotating light effect - like wot I did.

http://flic.kr/p/7RuVaf
BTW, I used a blue led for the interior lighting of the engineering hull - what can I say, it was an experiment!!

You might find it useful to do the same as I did and make a hollow base for the model. It gives it more stability and its somewhere to hide the battery!

Bernie

Glorfindel · Post by **Glorfindel** » Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:45 pm

Practice, practice, practice. Get your self a solderless breadboard, some LED's, resistors, appropriate wire, a battery clip and battery's to fit, wire cutters, some alligator clips and go to town! You'll need a little help figuring out resistance values so use this handy website.
http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz
Also check out some YouTube video's on the subject. Plenty of tutorials there to help you along the way.

tetsujin · Post by **tetsujin** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:06 am

I am pretty good with circuits but not so experienced with lighting ship kits - so I feel like my value to this discussion is somewhat limited. However, I have lit a 1:1000 TOS Enterprise, including nav flashers, bussards, and window cut-outs. So I'm not entirely in the dark here...

One simple thing I'd suggest with this kit: the plastic for the hull is pretty thick. Before you go trying to cut out windows, thin it down a bit (from the inside, of course.) This will make it easier to get a clean outline for the windows. This will also make it easier to get a reasonable amount of light out through the window if your LED isn't directly lined up with the window.

I found cutting out the windows to be a pretty big hassle - in particular trying to get them all aligned properly, with the right size and shape, and with proper rectangular corners (on the ones that are supposed to be rectangular, that is...) So, be aware of what you're getting yourself into, I guess. :)

Glorfindel · Post by **Glorfindel** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:34 pm

tetsujin wrote:
One simple thing I'd suggest with this kit: the plastic for the hull is pretty thick. Before you go trying to cut out windows, thin it down a bit (from the inside, of course.)

Absolutely outstanding advice! Smart indeed.